Tuesday, April 2, 2013

I have always loved to read.  In the first grade, Mrs. Williams taught us how words fit together on a page.  Dick and Jane  became friends that were replaced a year later at by Dot and Jim.  Oddly, they talked the same and had the same conversations.  “See Jim run” or “Run, Jane, run!”  A few weeks ago, one of my granddaughters wanted me to read a book to her, and rather than reading her book, I thought it would be far better to find Dot and Jim.  Thanks to my wonderful mother, I still have those first and second grade readers, and I dug them out of the bookcase.  “Catheryn”, I said.  “Let’s read these stories.”  “You should be able to read them by yourself!”  Then we opened the book and I re-realized there is really more to reading than just knowing the ABCs.  In fact, English is a pretty messy language with all those letters that choose to do different things in various situations. It’s certainly learnable by Catheryn; she is so bright that if she were a boy, her dad would call her son, but I was clearly rushing the process to stroke my own ego as a great teacher taking advantage of the perfect teachable moment. But learning it all in one session?  No wonder it took Mrs. Williams a whole year to get me to the 2^nd. Grade.  But by the 2^nd grade, Mrs. Ragsdale was awarding us Bookworm certificates for reading 5 and 10 and 25 and 100 books.  Books became an obsession.  I could not stand to throw a book away, no matter what the subject.  My wife shares my illness, and we have acquired quite a collection.  I have learned to cull the less useful from the more useful and I have boxes of the culled awaiting disposition.  Sadly, I’ve discovered ebooks and found that I enjoy reading them more than paper, and while reference books are useful, the internet has made reference so simple that finding a book on the shelf takes longer than completing online research.  So what do I do with the beautiful bookcase I built and all the tomes it contains?  As my Dad might say, I’ll leave it to my heirs……